Tyranny Of Faith

1

Five hours in the air, and he’d read barely two pages of his novel. A sniper’s bullet, a car bomb, a 500-pounder dropped through the clouds from an invisible foe on high. Which would it be? Any one of those, or if he were lucky none at all. Tom calibrated the threat as he gazed out and raged at the hopeless destruction he would surely confront down below. He foresaw the stench of decay, his colleagues’ endless despair, and the tedious preoccupation required for his own safety. He’d known something of it before.

The aircraft approached at a terrifying speed. The parched landscape leapt up at him sooner than expected. He rubbed his hands up across his face and over his head, laid back in his seat, and clenched both armrests. He looked away from the window just before they bounced with a punishing crunch, and twice more before engaging more convincingly with terra firma. The deafening roar of the reverse thrust filled the cabin, the effect forcing him forward in his seat, rattling the overhead lockers and eliciting a scream from somewhere behind him. He imagined the captain wrestling with the controls of the ageing aircraft as he finally brought it to a halt on the runway, lost in a cloud of dust.

Dr. Hassan Kabudi had begged him to come. It was going to be dangerous and unpaid work, yes, but mercifully short. A favour for a long-standing colleague, an old friend. A calling from on high. An obligation and a duty for his art.

A matter not only of national importance, but immediate urgency. Of world cultural significance, Hassan had said on the phone.

Much to Tom’s relief Dr. Kabudi was there in person to greet him, accompanied by a government official. That meant they’d be fast-tracked through the diplomatic channel and be on their way into Damascus city centre quickly, and with a security escort. It wasn’t the first time he’d been to Syria, but these were uncertain times. Everything had changed.

By the time they’d got him to his hotel he’d already experienced the pounding of artillery rounds and the rumble of the explosions which ensued, at a distance of course, but never quite far enough away. Columns of thick black smoke charred the horizon ahead of them. They passed through a white dust cloud of bombed out homes still choking the air. What he feared most was the stench of death. His wife assured him he’d know it when it came. How could people live like this? Tom admired them, and not least his friends from the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums (DGAM).

There was work to do, much work in fact, and no time to waste. The rapid advance of DAESH had caught the Ministry of Culture by surprise. Tom imagined it like a house fire. How do you decide what to take with you in the fevered panic prior to immolation, when you realise the roof is about to cave in on you? Rapid decisions were required. And what do you leave behind? What do you leave, only to regret later?

We need a person of international standing in the world of antiquities, someone whose words and opinions are respected, who can shout for us, stand up for our cultural heritage, Dr.Kabudi told Tom as part of his briefing the week before. We absolutely need you to help us. It’s very important that we determine what to save and what we’ll have to sacrifice. We can’t save whole archaeological sites but we can retrieve our most precious historical treasures. Our team of 2,500 brave staff are exhausted. We have plans to save nearly 300,000 objects for world heritage. We have done much so far, but the situation is very bad. Very bad now. It has been crazy. Some have already died for the cause. Just for doing their job. We are attacked from both sides, from our own government and by insurgency groups. They have destroyed cities, mosques and museums, but ISIS is another thing. They don’t care about anything. They are really very crazy people. And they are coming for us very fast.

By the latter half of 2014 most of the antiquities in Syria’s provincial museums, including the one in Palmyra, Syria’s most treasured site, had been transported to Damascus and stored away in clandestine bunkers, while locally based museum staff had continued to protect heritage sites which had fallen under insurgency control, often putting their lives at risk in doing so. Many sites had already been pillaged beyond recognition years before, ever since the civil war had begun in 2011. By the time Tom Hayter was asked to Damascus to advise on the preparation and compilation of the UNESCO International Council of Museum’s (ICOM) Emergency Red List of Syrian Cultural Objects at Risk, almost all of Syria’s cultural sites lay in regions of civil unrest or active combat.

That evening he phoned his wife to tell her he’d arrived safely, although she hadn’t pressed him to do so.

I want you back by Thursday, on time, safe and in one piece. Remember, it’s my 40th, and I‘ve made plans for the weekend. Big plans, she said. But Tom couldn’t promise anything and she was right, it was bloody dangerous being in Syria. His own personal safety was high on his agenda. But he owed a favour to his old colleague Hassan, a friendship he’d made several years ago while excavating the Graeco-Roman city of Apamea, in the Ghab Valley of north-western Syria. Hassan told him it was now a looted mess of pillaged pot holes and had already lost a large number of revered Roman mosaics to thieves.

At the DGAM offices, Hassan broke the news. We are losing good people. I have sad news for you. Do you remember Rami? He led the team at Apamea. He died last week defending his museum in Hama. It was ransacked by an armed mob. We reported it, but nothing was done. No one accused, and no one brought to justice. Such is our future here.

All this death and destruction was sacrilege to Tom. Rami had become a close friend over the months they’d worked together. He knew this absolutely had to stop and he wanted to be a part of it. And right now a personal element had just been added to his pursuit. It felt like a duty. And it wasn’t just for Syria. Iraq was also at risk. How many friends and colleagues might he lose there?

It seemed like a modest request to help Dr. Kabudi with Syria’s Red List. Tom felt honoured to be asked, but he had a hunch this was going to be just the beginning of the beginning. So much more of antiquity was at stake with every bloodied footstep with which DAESH marched across Syria and Iraq. They absolutely had to be halted. All the horrific loss of life hit the headlines first. The human suffering was appalling, and of course Tom knew it was the greater tragedy, but he believed the safeguarding of a nation’s cultural heritage counted for something too. Everything mattered. And the world couldn’t allow this to pass by.

2

He’d been travelling for 24 hours, but he still had Dr. Kabudi’s last solemn words ringing in his ears, as he took a shower to wash off the dust and sweat of Syria.

We sincerely wish when you return to Paris, that you will implore ICOM to save our Syrian heritage and stop the international trade of our national artefacts. It was complicated enough getting out of Damascus, let alone reaching Florence airport in time to liaise with his wife, without this plea repeating on a continuous loop in his head.

Marie curled up on the hotel bed, holding her knees up to her chest. Then she closed her eyes and began to shake, rocking gently from side to side. At first she said she wasn’t going out for the evening and later, that she wasn’t at all hungry, and felt sick. But they eventually took their seats for dinner in a busy little restaurant off the Piazza del Duomo. Her behaviour in the bedroom and the miserable expression on her face suggested to Tom that something grave still occupied her thoughts, but she’d tell him in her own time. She’d been sullen ever since they’d arrived at the hotel earlier that evening. Her mood tonight was decidedly in contrast to the joyous afternoon they’d spent ambling along the Tuscan lanes from Florence on their way to the hotel she’d chosen in San Gimignano.

This was surely the least appropriate time and place for what he was about to hear. And when it came, nothing could have been better designed to wipe a smile off Tom’s face with such conviction, however tactfully she might have tried to convey it. Was this deliberate, orchestrated for maximum impact, or was it just thoughtless desperation? Perhaps he’d never know. Things hadn’t been good for some time, and with no apparent signs of a resolution. He hoped her birthday treat might be an opportunity for reconciliation, and a re-birth of their marriage. They were in a Renaissance city after all. But it wasn’t to be. He cut their dinner short and they returned to the hotel in silence, their immediate futures decided.

That night he contemplated the sofa first, then went into the bathroom to check out the size of the bath. Both would be more comfortable in many respects than the double bed. The thought of touching her, even feeling the warmth of her body close to him, disgusted him. It was a cruel act. You tell people that sort of thing in a quiet, well-chosen moment at home, not over a birthday dinner in a swanky, crowded restaurant in Italy. He was angry now. If he’d had the money he would have chosen another room or even returned home to Paris without her. She remained taciturn, placid, and seemingly unmoved. But surely inside she was seething with anguish. It can’t have been a sudden decision. She’d given it plenty of thought. At least that was what he expected of her. But just now he’d heard enough.

He got up at six and left his stifling hotel room to breathe in the welcome relief of a new day, although he knew it promised limited respite. He walked out of a narrow side street into the square. Teams of rubbish collectors were tipping out bins, competing against flocks of scavenging pigeons. Late night party goers still lay in heaps of love on the grass verges, coffee and newspaper shops were winding out their awnings, and arranging chairs and tables on the pavements. The mad clamour of the day was just beginning.

He ordered a coffee and sat out, although it was chilly and the sun hadn’t reached him yet. In a fit of madness, he rushed across the street and bought cigarettes. He hadn’t smoked for at least ten years. Now was a good time though. He coughed on the first drag, but the nicotine soon sent his head spinning, and he stretched out on his fake rattan chair and watched the world about him slowly awakening. He began to imagine the utter misery and turmoil that was about to unfold. Such a waste. So unsatisfactory not to have found a working compromise. The seat was damp and he became fidgety. He crossed his legs several times, smoked one cigarette after another, and went over last night’s conversation at dinner.

You were a day late to arrive. We missed our Uffizi reservation in Florence. You’re never around. I never see you. You’re either in the Paris showroom or somewhere in the Middle East. And I know you were unfaithful in Stockholm. Those were the first words he could recall her saying last night. The Stockholm accusation was particularly unfair, because she knew very well it was tabloid trash.

And then, I’m leaving you. I’ve had enough. I’m with someone else.

You’re having an affair then? Anyone I know?

Yes, Patrick.

What? Patrick. Well fuck him. Fuck that bastard. He always fancied you. He’d raised his voice, slammed a fist on the table at that point, and attracted glances from adjoining tables. He winced now at the thought of it.

Last night all went by in such an unexpected and confusing blur. So why tell him in San Gimignano on her birthday of all occasions? OK, she was angry, disappointed, exasperated, and Patrick had probably urged her to tell him as soon as possible, most likely when they next met, which was now. What a bastard.

He asked for another coffee and wished for a moment that he’d died an honourable death in Damascus, doing what he did best, what he loved most, and so much more passionately than he loved Marie apparently. She was at her wit’s end. But Patrick, his oldest friend, his best mate, that was raw, naked revenge, surely? She’d made her point.

Today they’d planned to visit the town, starting this morning with the Torre Grossa and adjacent museum. He decided not to return to the hotel but to make a head start without her. It was possible in the tumult that might be filling her head, that she might have forgotten. He didn’t want to see her at all that day. She was on her own. Her punishment. He set off in the general direction of the tower, the only one in the city which could be ascended, and from whose summit spectacular views of the surrounding Tuscan countryside were promised.

Tom was soon marching his way up the steps of the winding interior staircase. It was not for the faint-hearted and he avoided looking down as his laboured footsteps clanged against each step of the iron work. After fifty meters of vertical ascent he reached a ladder, at the top of which he climbed through a small opening onto the look out which was surrounded by a waist-high parapet. He walked to the edge, resting his hands up against the solid stonework to steady himself, and observed the whole world below him. He felt a sensation of sliding off and out into the oblivion as if he’d grown wings. He saw nothing below except the drop and the empty space. His mouth filled with saliva. He was going to be sick.

He was alone. He felt almost weightless as he turned his gaze out across the town below. Then he cast his eyes directly downwards again and felt his knees buckle at the sight of the void. He could make out a black dog below, and flinched at the tiny size of it. A strange sensation in his groin turned him queasy. He was terrified of letting himself go, and yet he wasn’t fully in control. His head began to spin. How would he do it? It was so easy, and yet so impossible too. Climb up and jump off? Roll over the edge discreetly? Dive like a champion gymnast? The marriage wasn’t worth this. She wasn’t. Nothing was, but in his misery, and after a callous betrayal by such a close friend, he couldn’t prevent himself clambering onto the parapet and leaning over. Patrick of all people. Well fuck him too.

He sat there looking down, with his legs dangling over the edge, then leant over.

No, no, please don’t leave me here, please don’t leave me, a voice cried out from behind him.

Hearing the cry he turned around to see a small boy by the entrance. He was of meagre build, with short blond hair and piercing blue eyes, wearing a school uniform, grey flannel shorts, grey jacket of the same material, a white shirt and a poorly tied blue and grey striped tie, with long brown woollen socks up to his knees, and on his tiny feet, polished brown lace-up shoes. The little boy stared at Tom, tears streaming down his face.

One of the boy’s hands was clutching the doorway to steady himself, the other hand was stretched out towards Tom, as if desperate to grab hold of him. Tom began to shake at the sight of the boy, so slight, so vulnerable, so innocent and yet he couldn’t add any meaning to what he saw. Aware of his own predicament again, he tightened his grip on the parapet and eased his way back to safety. But the boy had gone.

Breathless, he staggered towards the exit and peered down the stairs in search of him. But there was no one. The staircase below was empty. He shouted out, but the only response was an echo back up the stairwell. He leant against the cool stonework, debilitated, incapable of placing one foot before the other.

He’d been through worse abandonment than this. Yes, of course he had. How could he forget those feelings of dejection? His parents waving goodbye. Holding back the tears, all so young to be so brave.

But now he possessed the fortitude, the resilience and the determination to see all of this through satisfactorily. And even triumph from it. He was totally experienced to do so.

3

From the outset Tom argued for the rectitude of a happy divorce. He was determined that if it should happen, it should proceed with that in mind. And end that way, happily. People didn’t believe him.

They always expect bloodshed, a spectacle, a fight, he told a friend. A happy outcome seemed like too much of an oxymoron. But slowly, one by one, he told them, showed them, and succeeded in convincing them that some measure of comity could be resurrected from even the most bitter of breakdowns.

But whichever way Tom chose to view his divorce it still knocked him over, pummelled his pride, and emptied his wallet. He couldn’t cope with both a divorce and the daily demands of running his business. Managing debt meant selling things off, saying goodbye to personal treasures from his valued art collection to make ends meet. In the early days after their separation, he put on weight, drank to excess and lost too much hair for his own liking.

In its prime a decade ago, his business had been trading in European and Eastern antiquities at the rarefied end of the market. He had built up an international clientele and had a full order book across continents, supplying museums, wealthy private clients and even royalty. His shop, although he avoided calling it a shop because he preferred to believe it was more like a showroom, was in the Rue de Rivoli situated at one of the essential crossroads of the Paris antiques world. His business had become a honeypot for wealthy art collectors, particularly those with an eye for the antiquities of Roman, Greek and Middle Eastern origins. That was his speciality. He was also in constant demand for curating exhibitions, or more specialist work with the International Council of Museums at UNESCO.

But with the prospect of new unknown beginnings, he was easily distracted from his business. He was the tangential sort at the best of times. Distractions abounded. Nothing started was ever finished. There were too many loose ends. Phone calls were left unanswered, bills were unpaid, his junior partner became increasingly querulous, and his secretary was prone to longer lunch breaks and unaccounted absences. He needed to pick himself up and move on. With a change to a smaller flat close to the St.Paul métro stop, not far from his showroom, and a tighter grip on his emotional life, he gradually became more sanguine about sorting out his life.

It was March and the sun warmed his back as he strolled to work with his dog walking to heel. Signs of early TYRANNY OF FAITH bud break in the plane trees above tempted him to dream of a new summer of revival. He breathed in the dark tobacco pungency of a Gauloise from a passing smoker. He’d often walk the longer way to the showroom, through the Square Marie Trintignant and along the banks of the Seine which gave him a greater sense of space and an opportunity to clear his head. Sometimes he wondered if he might be slowly suffocating, or perhaps he was just depressed after his divorce. But Minnie, his black labrador, was in high spirits chasing pigeons and barking at people who were afraid of her, but he vowed to spoil her at weekends and take her for longer walks outside Paris.

Which reminded him that he meant to contact Delia, who often joined them on their days out of town. There was nothing like an old friend for company and he missed her now. By chance one day, and sooner than expected, he bumped into her in a bookshop not far from his flat, so they altered their respective plans and took a coffee nearby to catch up on the missing months. He’d met her in San Francisco some twenty years earlier. She was a native California girl who’d moved to Paris. He dropped round for supper that same night. Frustratingly he’d set out without an umbrella and by the time he’d walked across the bridge a heavy shower had drenched him. He arrived soaking wet prompting Delia to insist on chucking his clothes into the dryer while he soaked in a hot bath.

She rented a three-storey house in a quiet street in the Ile de la Cité, a house to which Tom had a key and a spare bed when he felt like staying over, although he’d not made much use of it recently. During and after the worst months of his divorce Delia had cooked for him, washed for him, and generally nursed him through the deepest troughs of post-marital depression.

She flirted with him just enough to entertain him, but never too much to arouse him. It was a situation which required no explanation. He never hinted at sex and certainly not a relationship, and neither did she, at least not with Tom. To show his appreciation of her part in his life he took her out for dinner and sometimes to the theatre, although it was a rare occurrence in his present financial situation. What they enjoyed most was simply chatting, filling each other in with the day’s news, and listening to each other’s problems. The real value in their friendship lay in that. They cherished what they had, and neither expected or asked for more from each other.

After several years of study, Delia was about to qualify in relationship counselling and had taken up a position at a clinic in the centre of Paris, specialising in sexual disorders. Tom thought this was particularly funny, as sex wasn’t something Delia ever seemed to discuss with ease, but again perhaps that was just sex with him. Or perhaps that’s why sex was to become her speciality.

4

Four years earlier

Pernille called this morning from Stockholm, that woman from the Dagens Nyheter newspaper, if you remember. Are you absolutely sure about this? Your whole career, and our business reputation depends on it, said Pierre, Tom’s business partner.

Don’t worry. I’ve been over and over it. I’ve really done my homework. I’ve already seen a lot of pieces from their collection. They had an exhibition at the Met about two years ago. I was with Marie, accompanying her on a medical conference in upstate New York. Even then, I had doubts concerning the provenance and integrity of some of their pieces. Marie said it wasn’t worth causing a hiatus, ruffling the feathers of the rich and powerful, and risking ruining my career, so I said nothing. But it really riled me.

Christ, you’ve got such a good eye, Pierre said, laughing. And you were only in Stockholm for a day last week, and it was a boozy preview for the art world. Are you sure there were that many fakes, even at the preview? How could you tell in so short a visit?

Yes, Pierre. I swear I could identify a fair number of fakes, and I’m not letting the Gustarvassons get away with this again. They weren’t even bad fakes, they were even ancient fakes, but it was the credentials, the misnaming, the passing off, which is frankly so monstrous. They think they can fuck us all over because they’re so bloody wealthy. Well, I’m going to out them with the help of this Pernille woman. But first we’ll go and meet them in person, give them time to repent, remove some pieces, so their exhibition isn’t the sham it’s about to be. We’ll play it tactfully.

They’re one of the wealthiest families in Sweden. They’ll totally destroy you.

Trust me. I’m doing this for artistic integrity and the probity of my trade. There’ll be a raucous uproar, a great scandal, Tom said, waving his hands up in the air. And it will hit the headlines big-time and put our little Rue de Rivoli business right on the map.

They both laughed and Pierre said, I hope you’re right, or you’ll be bringing me down with you. We’ll never recover.

Tom and Pernille, his new journalist friend, met Benjamin Gustarvasson at the Cadier Bar in the Grand Hotel, Stockholm, a week later. Mr.Gustarvasson had been notified of the nature of the conversation which would take place, and had been prudent enough to request a lawyer to accompany him. Having denied every statement and every proof of fakery which Tom proffered, the meeting came to a sudden end, with Mr.Gustarvasson pushing back his chair noisily, standing up and downing the last drop of his whisky.

He bent down and turned to Tom and Pernille, still seated, and said, If anything defamatory is published in your newspaper concerning the Gustarvasson family, our art collection or our upcoming exhibition at the National Museum, you will both be hearing from my lawyer here, Marcus Ekelstein.

*

The litigation began, and Tom stood up in court and defended his allegations. On one of his many trips to Stockholm for the trial, occasionally accompanied by Marie, the press usually hunted him down, despite the best efforts of the staff of the Dagens Nyheter newspaper to hide him away in a backstreet hotel.

One evening as he sat at the bar of a drinking house near his hotel, a blonde woman carrying a briefcase introduced herself as Natasha Bergstrund, and handed Tom a business card.

If you’re not happy with your defence team Mr. Hayter, I’d be happy to help, she said, and asked if she could sit with him. Tom, too weary to decline her after a long day in court, obliged, and ordered her a vodka and tonic. And one drink led to a few more.

"I’m married, Natasha. I